Building a platform for success Brand platform development for business start-ups
Spinach are a branding, advertising and content marketing agency. We aspire to create iconic, timeless brands that people love, respect and desire. Brands that connect emotionally.
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Adam Thomas Partner adam@spinachdesign.com T: 020 7033 7640 Leigh Banks Partner leigh@spinachdesign.com T: 020 7033 7641
Building a platform for success Brand platform development for business start-ups
. © 2017 Spinach Design Ltd
Introduction
Every day, businesses are starting up with fantastic, innovative and exciting new products and services. Yet no matter how good they are, few start-ups manage to push through to the next level.
Often start-ups fail to achieve their aspirations because they fail to translate their innovative ideas into meaningful propositions. And the reason why, because they don’t have their brand strategy down. A brand platform strategy helps business start-ups plan and map a course to success. A good brand platform strategy document will help you; ● Connect with the right audience ● Demonstrate your point of difference ● Position against your competitors ● Increase your value ● Achieve clarity, focus and consistency ● Inform your visual identity (logo, typography, colour palette and photography) ● Provide the basis for developing your brand language and tone of voice This is a guide to help you create your own strategic brand platform document.
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The how and what
Work through this guide to complete the following exercises.
Capturing the basics of your brand
Do the exercises as a team made up of your key brand stakeholders. This will help you achieve a strong brand platform built on consensus.
Knowing your competitors
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Knowing yourself 8 9
Knowing your customers
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Reasons to believe & points of difference
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Creating a brand promise
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Brand essence
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Defining your brand character
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Establish your brand values
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Brand positional statement
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Brand backstory
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Capturing the basics of your brand
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Here the aim is to create clarity about the brand and understand the very basics.
What your brand is and is not. What your brand wants to become. Who your brand exists for and who it doesn’t. Use words that describe your brand practically, physically and emotionally. For example, if describing a brand of ice cream, we might say it is delicious, organic, cool, happiness, yummy, etc.
Action 1. Create a list of words for each question opposite 2. Review the words and refine down to 5 best words that best answer each question
What your brand is
What your brand wants to become
Who your brand doesn’t exist for
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What your brand is not
Who your brand exists for
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Knowing yourself
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As a brand, it is vital to know what your strengths and weaknesses are to ensure that you can capitalise on the opportunities and reduce your weaknesses.
A simple SWOT audit is a powerful way to identify strategies and actions to take you forward.
Action 1. Using Excel or Google sheets, create a sheet that has columns for Strengths (S), Weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O), Threats (T) and Actions (A) 2. As a group, review your key business areas such as your product and services, operations, marketing and branding, organisational culture, competitiveness, branding, technology, finance and human resources 3. F or each area, list your SWOT points in the sheet 4. R eview the list and add action points. These action points will then become strategies and tactics to drive your business forward
Knowing your competitors
You need to know your competitors to be able to position against them.
An effective technique is to complete a competitor SWOT.
Action 1. Identify your top 5 competitors 2. Conduct a SWOT of your competitors, specifically considering: a. Products and services b. Their unique value proposition c. Visual identity (logo, colour palette, photographic style) d. Verbal identity (their brand language and tone of voice) e. Marketing materials (website, social media, video, packaging, etc.) f. Price g. Quality 3. F or each competitor, confirm their main point of difference, compared to you
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Knowing your customers
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Understanding who your current and prospective customers are is vital in being able to successfully position your brand and target them.
Action 1. Organise your customers into distinct segments 2. Prioritise the customer segments in order of most likely to be loyal, profit making and alignment to your offering 3. F or each customer segment, write a profile answering the questions below
a. What is the customer group name? b. Type of company (size/employees, turnover, location, business sectors) c. What is the target individual’s job position / function? d. What are their responsibilities, needs and motivations? e. What attitudes of theirs do we need to be aware of? f. What are their personal profiles (age, lifestyle, personality behaviour, hobbies)? g. How do they source purchase information? h. What is their purchase process? i. Where does the target audiences gain information about your brand/similar brands? j. What qualities and values are important to your target customers when they seek a service or product similar to yours? k. What is the driver of the purchase? l. Where would we find the customers? m. Where would we not find them?
Reasons to believe & points of difference
In today’s competitive world, it is vital that you stand out as offering something different to that of your competitors. Key brand differentiators are known as “reasons to believe”. It is essential to communicate the reasons why someone should believe in you, to give them a reason to select you over your competitors. Of course, sometimes you may have a unique advantage that is obvious. If you don’t, then you should look to create three to four key reasons that you use to demonstrate your difference and relevance.
Action 1. List all the things that you can do to differentiate your brand a. Attributes – what product or service qualities do you offer that your competitors don’t? b. Processes – what processes and methodologies do you use that are distinct? c. Brand history – what is your unique history, inspiration or vision? d. Brand personality – your unique character e. Intellectual property – what technologies, patents and copyright do you hold? f. Performance – the unique benefits offered by your product or service g. Awards h. Testimonials and endorsements 2. E valuate each differentiator and score according to a. Importance to customers b. Ability to achieve c. Ability to defend and prevent competitors copying d. Alignment with brand essence and purpose 3. H aving evaluated and scored the differentiators, select the top 3 or 4. Make one of the differentiators your lead point of difference 4. T ranslate the differentiators into a phrase or list of bullet points that now become your reasons to believe
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Creating a brand promise
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A brand promise is your statement of what your customers can expect from you. It is also a clear statement to your staff and stakeholders of your aspirations as a brand.
A good brand promise inspires your team, employees and customers, whilst informing your strategic decisions. Some examples of well known brands and their brand promises: BMW “The Ultimate Driving Machine” Nike “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” Apple “Think different” Paul Rhodes Bakery “The Art of Baking”
Action As a group, create your brand promise.
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Brand essence
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A brand essence is a one-, twoor three-word statement expressing what the brand stands for and will always stand for. A brand essence statement should be positive, motivating, relevant and unique.
Some classic examples: Harley Davidson “Freedom” Nike “Innovation and inspiration” Campari “Intriguing, Stimulating, Pleasure”
Action 1. Brainstorm a list of words and statements that express your brand essence 2. Collectively review and refine your list 3. Finalise your brand essence
Define your brand character
Much like a person, a brand has distinct personality traits that combine together to form a unique character. We may talk about an individual as being funny and witty, bright and intelligent, or fast and dynamic, and so it is for brands.
A brand character statement is a summary of the personality traits.
Action 1. On a presentation board (or similar) create two column. Column one for words that describe your personality. The second column for words that describe what your personality is not 2. Go through the group and ask each individual to suggest words that describe what is/what is not your personality and add these to their respective columns 3. C ollectively review the words. Select the words where there is a consensus agreement and omit the others 4. U sing the words, create a statement that describes your brand character
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Establish your brand values
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As humans, we judge others by their beliefs and values. And the same is true of brands. Your brand values should be a reflection of the beliefs that you hold as an organisation. They underpin and inform how you behave and act as a brand, and over time, they become the qualities that you are known by. Brand values enable customers to see what makes you different.
Brand values need to be believable, authentic, meaningful and livable. Try to limit the amount of brand values to 4 or 5. The more values you have, the harder it is to demonstrate them.
Action 1. Create an initial list of values 2. Collectively reduce the list down to no more than 4 or 5 values 3. V alidate the value. As a group, discuss the value and how as an organisation you demonstrate through the value through your actions. Identify the traits that provide evidence of how you demonstrate the value. 4. D ocument the value. Describe what the value means to your customers, how they would experience the value. Support the value with a list of 4 to 5 traits
Brand value 1 (example)
Explanation
Trait 1
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Trait 4
Trait 5
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Brand positioning statement
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A brand positioning statement helps you state who you are, what you do, who you do it for and why anyone should care.
Here’s an example statement for menswear retailer Racing Green: “Racing Green is a contemporary British menswear brand. We make considered and accessible on-trend menswear, focusing on predominantly on timeless looks and classic style. Our commitment to affordable design, ethical sourcing and best practice production makes us a sustainable and trusted brand and business. Our goal it be recognised as a market leading, aspirational lifestyle brand”.
Action To create your own brand positioning statement, write down the following and turn into a paragraph 1. Who are you and what do you do? 2. What do you want to be? 3. What’s special about you? 4. Why should anyone choose you? 5. What one thing should you be famous for?
Brand backstory
Why did you start your Business? What inspired you? What problem needed solving? What was your calling? How did you start your business? What problems did you encounter? What wrongs did you want to make right? Action Write your own brand backstory. Keep it to 150 words.
People love a good story. They love to be inspired. A brand backstory helps you tell your very own unique history and mission. They give the brand a human narrative that helps connect on an emotional level.
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Bringing it all together
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Congratulations! You now have the information to create a strategic brand platform.
So now it’s time to bring all that fantastic information together and create your own strategic brand platform document. Going forward, you can now use the document as a vital tool to; ● Ensure your brand identity is aligned with your brand strategy ● Better communicate in a clear, focused and consistent manner ● Develop a strong and unique organisational culture ● Make decisions that support your brand strategy ● Avoid actions that will damage your brand ● Ensure everyone who works on your brand understands and embraces it